


With A Little Help

by genarti



Category: How To Be A Werewolf (Webcomic)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Character of Color, Coffee, Epilogue, Family, Fluff, Gen, Malaya's many faces, Siblings, Very minor epilogue which canon may or may not eventually contradict, Vincent's different lineface when he's peeved, Vincent's lineface when he makes a joke, Werewolves, supportiveness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-25 00:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17110997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/pseuds/genarti
Summary: The Dysangco Walters siblings vs homework, 3-0.





	With A Little Help

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lexie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/gifts).



> This was super fun to write! I love _How To Be A Werewolf_ SO MUCH, omg, but the thought of writing fic for it hadn't occurred to me until I saw your prompts and letter. And now I'm so glad I did. SIBLING FEELINGS. I hope you enjoy!

Malaya, at 13, is officially old enough to work in the café a few hours a week. That’s according to the law and, more importantly, her parents.

(“But only as long as all your homework gets done, Malaya!” 

“That’s right, kiddo. No falling behind. We’re trusting you to be mature here, and homework comes first.”

She’d been standing straight and tall – well, as tall as she can, anyway, which isn’t very – but at that, she rolled her eyes. _Duh_ , she knows that.

Still, she had to ask, just in case, even though she hated it: “Papa, I can still hide in the break room though, right? I mean, if I’m feeling – you know, if I need to?”

He’d hugged her then, and Mami hugged them both. Malaya huffed out her breath to show that she was annoyed at being babied but she secretly felt warm and safe too. “Of course, Mal. Always. That’s always the rule. If you’re feeling uncomfortable, you get out of there to where you feel okay. Don’t you worry about the customers. That’s _my_ job.”)

She’s not allowed to use the milk steamer or the espresso machine without an adult watching, which she obeys even though it’s obviously unnecessary – she’s 13, not a baby, and she’s been making herself steamed milk for years -- and she can’t reach the shelf with the fancy teas without a footstool. But she can clear tables and straighten up the shelves, and she can make drinks for the baristas if they’re watching to make sure she does it right. (She always does it right. She’s been coming here for longer than they have, after all.) 

So right now, she’s picking up the dishes that people always leave on the tables, even though there are bussing bins _right there_ with a nice big THANK YOU FOR CLEARING YOUR TABLE sign and a DISHES HERE sign too that she helped pick the colors for when she was just a kid. But people always leave things anyway. _Apparently customers can’t read_ is what Papa sighs when he’s annoyed, and at the advanced age of 13 Malaya already knows in her soul that this is true.

Suddenly she stops. “Hey! Vince, you’re supposed to be doing homework.”

Vincent scowls at her from where he sits in an out-of-the-way booth, with papers spread around him and sneakers dangling. “I am!”

“Are not! You’re reading Ranger Rick.”

Vincent covers the magazine with his sleeve, as if that will make it look like math homework. “That’s biology! It’s _science_.”

“I didn’t say it wasn’t science, dummy, I said it wasn’t homework.”

He juts out his jaw mulishly.

Malaya sets her tray full of dirty dishes on his table, the better to put her hands on her hips and sigh. The thing is, Vincent usually likes school. And for an eight-year-old, he’s weirdly organized. (Not that she knows many other kids all that well. But still.) Sure, he gets distracted from homework, and Ranger Rick and National Geographic Kids are frequently responsible, but he doesn’t usually act this stubborn and defensive about even doing it. “What’s up, Vince?”

He looks away.

“Viiiiiiince.”

“I don’t understand it,” he mutters. In Tagalog, probably because Vince hates that kind of admission, and this way nobody can overhear him making it. Malaya knows this because she does the same thing.

“What part?”

He shoves his math folder at her. It’s got a tree frog on it, which Vincent is currently sulking at as if it’s personally offended him. Malaya opens it to find a worksheet covered in... “Ugh, Roman numerals? I hated those too.”

“They’re stupid,” he says, “and they don’t make any sense.”

“Okay, well, tell you what. We’re not very busy right now, so I bet I can get Nadja to supervise me making two steamed milks. And then I’ll come help you with Roman numerals for a while, okay?”

He studies her, then nods as seriously as if they’ve just completed business negotiations. “With caramel.”

Malaya rolls her eyes fondly. “ _Obviously_ with caramel, Vince. What do you take me for?”

“Okay,” he says, satisfied, and starts clearing her a place beside him.

\----------------------

Malaya is 20, very nearly 21. So she’s almost legal to drink, except that taking mind-altering substances that weaken your self-control and your judgment seems like a _really, really bad idea_ when you’re a secret werewolf who doesn’t want to rip anyone’s face off. (Plus her parents probably would have let her have a glass of wine or something at home if she wanted long ago, if it weren’t for the whole werewolf thing, and since there is the whole werewolf thing, going to a bar sounds like the worst possible idea she could ever have.) She’s also almost legal to gamble, which, _why_ , and probably some stuff about guns, which, again: no. She doesn’t want or need to hunt, and if she’s ever really seriously threatened, the big wolfy teeth and claws are a deadly weapon that comes a whole lot faster and more easily than a gun would.

Which is not a train of thought she really wants to go down. She doesn’t want to hurt anybody, and she doesn’t _want_ to want to hurt anybody. Not even _miss-my-coffee-is-too-cold-miss-my-coffee-is-too-hot_ guy.

(But sometimes, at the full moon, she kind of does. A little. Not anyone there, not any of her family – god, no, never – but if Impossibly Narrow Range Of Coffee Temperatures Guy were there and complaining at her then, she might...

Well, she’s not really sure what she might do. Maybe nothing. Maybe just growl at him. Maybe a lot. She doesn’t want to find out, is the point, which is why nobody but family gets to see her on a full moon night.)

Anyway, she’s been part owner of the café for ten and a half months, which is all the symbol of adulthood she needs or wants.

But being 20-almost-21 means that Vincent is now 14 and three months – and officially taller than her, _dammit_ Vince – and studying for his learner’s permit. That matters, because it’s freedom for him. He doesn’t talk a lot about it, but she knows he can’t wait, and he’s stressing about the test.

In his chill stonefaced Vincent way, but still.

She can’t help him by being a licensed driver in the passenger seat or giving him tips from personal experience, but she can still help out her little brother. Malaya scoops up the copy of _What EVERY DRIVER Must KNOW_ that he left on the coffee table and heads for the garden. 

“Hey,” she calls out the back door, waving the booklet over her head. “Want me to quiz you?”

Vincent straightens up from the seedlings he’s been fussing over, and shrugs. “Sure. If you’re not busy.”

She trots over. “Just finished doing dishes. And I worked opening and lunch, so sitting around making you take a test and not having to smile at anybody sounds great. –What’re those going to be?”

He points to the seedlings – _these?_ – and she nods. “Squash.” He frowns at them. “Heirloom squash. Two kinds. Except I think they might cross-pollinate, so I don’t know if I can save the seeds. I will, but when I grow them next year they might come out weird.”

“It’s an experiment!” she says cheerfully, dropping down cross-legged on the grass. She makes sure she’s clear of the weeding zone. Vincent has definitely tossed weeds straight at her head before, and at least a quarter of the time it’s been accidental. “As long as they’re tasty.”

“We’ll see.”

“What’re they called? Your heirloom things have great names sometimes.”

He points to one side. “Marina Di Chioggia.” _Chee-oh-gee-ah_ , he says.

“Oh, is _that_ how that’s said? I remember seeing the package now.”

“To be honest, I have no idea.”

She laughs.

“And this one,” he says, with the extra deadpan that means he’s really proud of whatever ridiculous thing he’s about to say, “is Long Island Cheese squash.”

“ _...What._ ”

“That’s the name,” he says smugly. “Looks like a wheel of cheese. If you’re a really bored person in the 1800s in New Jersey. Maybe they had weird cheese.”

Mal can’t answer, because she’s too busy cracking up. At last she manages, wheezing, “ _Long Island Cheese squash._ ”

Even Vincent cracks a grin at that. “So obviously I had to get it.”

“I’m gonna – I’m gonna make Long Island Cheese Squash Pie. Oh my _god_. I’m going to make cheese squash pie and I’m going to make you take it to a, a potluck or something and explain it to people.”

“The 4H fair,” he suggests, and “ _Yesss_ ,” she hisses, and they share a glance of perfect accord. They’re going to do this, and whether the pie wins a prize or not, the Dysangco Walters siblings will have won. _In their hearts_ , and also in the moral victory of making people read a label like that and try to figure out what the hell it means.

She’d fistbump Vincent, but his hands are all covered in dirt.

“Okay, okay. _And_ , you are going to drive our amazing Long Island Cheese Squash Pie to the fair yourself. That’s part of the deal.” She brandishes the booklet at him with dramatic menace, which is only slightly undercut by the way she’s only just got the giggles under control. “So get ready to ace this quiz, buster.”

“I do like acing tests.”

“Okay. Number one: City driving is more dangerous than expressway driving because...”

\----------------------

Malaya is 27, and she’s somewhere she never thought she’d be. She’s the alpha of a werewolf pack, and things have settled down some now that that whole thing with Connie is finally, finally over. (Downside: Sara was not exaggerating _at all_ about how annoying the Council’s Skype meetings are. She’s kind of dreading her first annual potluck.) She can go to the grocery store now, and shop for her own clothes, and change back and forth into her werewolf form at will, and even hold her own in hand-to-hand combat.

She can trust herself. Almost entirely, and that last little bit will come.

And she’s learning how to drive.

The first step is getting her learner’s permit, and the first step to _that_ is going to the DMV and taking a written test. (A strange place! Full of people and lines and near-legendary irritations! And she’s only a little tiny bit terrified about mauling somebody, and most of that anxiety is just remnants of old habit! If she dealt with a shopping mall and a grocery store and the entire Michigan Werewolf Council arguing for a solid two hours about how many people can brig potato salad to the same potluck, she can deal with the DMV. She tells herself this a few times a day.)

Anyway, she can and she will, so right now she’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, frowning over the right-of-way rules in _What EVERY DRIVER Must KNOW_. They’ve redesigned it since she was quizzing Vince, but the information seems about the same, and the boredom factor of all these long dry lists of potentially fatally important information is the same too. “Be prepared to yield when... approaching a YIELD sign. Never could’ve guessed that one, thanks.”

A shadow falls over her shoulder, accompanied by Vincent’s scent, and then he’s crossing his arms on the back of the couch and leaning over her shoulder. She leans back against him in greeting, and informs him, “This is really boring.”

“Yep.”

“And it says the obvious a _lot_.”

“Yep.”

That about sums it up. She gets why it’s spelled out in all this detail, but she’s also about ready to throw the book across the room. (The fact that it’s two days until the full moon might be a relevant factor here too.)

They’re both quiet for a minute. Then he says, “Hey, Mal. I’m really proud of you. You’re going to be able to go wherever you want soon, all on your own, and you’re going to be okay. You had help, sure, but you did that.”

Twisting around to hug somebody over the back of a couch is really awkward even when they’re not a zillion feet tall, but Malaya is well practiced at that challenge.

“Eventually on my own,” she does have to add, into his shoulder. “I’m going to need another driver along for a while.”

“Sure. But you know, I’m a licensed driver. I can legally supervise you and everything.”

“...Huh,” she says, releasing him and settling down again. “I guess you can.”

Learning how to drive is something she never thought she’d be able to do. But realizing that her (giant) baby brother is an actual adult is mind-blowing in different ways, and it still catches her by surprise sometimes. In a lot of ways, he’s had more freedom than her for most of his life, but being _legally recognized as responsible driving supervision_ is different. It’s weird. But it’s also pretty cool.

He nudges her shoulder. “Hey.” He’s doing his Vincent-smile, the little satisfied one that’s just in the eyes. “Want me to quiz you?”

**Author's Note:**

> As far as I can tell, 12 is old enough to work in a family-owned business, for limited hours and not during school, but I figure maybe Maria and Elliot opted for a slightly older family policy.
> 
> In Michigan, apparently, you can get your first-level learner’s permit at 14 years and 9 months, your second-level one at 16, and your full license at 17. I spent entirely too long looking at the Michigan DMV site. ( _What EVERY DRIVER Must KNOW_ is not officially capitalized like that, but come on, just [look at this cover](https://www.michigan.gov/documents/wedmk_16312_7.pdf).)
> 
> Chioggia is pronounced _Kee-oh-ja_. Vincent does not speak Italian. (I assume.) However, Marina Di Chioggia is a [real heirloom squash](https://www.seedsavers.org/marina-di-chioggia-squash), and, gloriously, so is the [Long Island Cheese squash](https://www.seedsavers.org/long-island-cheese-organic-squash).


End file.
